Monday, December 17, 2012

Things Found in the Goblin Market This Week

More and more, I see the reasoning behind the Physiker's
theory. She says that each Goblin market
gives a trailing history of how the Hedge was re-configuring itself the prior
week—of course, she says it in the most dismissive way, implying that I am
idiot for not realizing it myself.
Perhaps she is right. I had held
on to my lazy thinking that the Gobbos knew paths or had caravans. Now I notice that the change-over in stock
and new items popping up always clump together in clusters of qualities. To my credit, there is a constantly changing
array of the corrupted items that just stew in the magic of the Hedge until
they take on some nightmarish attributes—and those are the majority of the
dross offerings in the bargain bins.
They masked this pattern for me.
That's what I tell myself.

Clearly, the gobs were able to break into some huge Faerie
animal holding facility—a zoo or a lab or a horrible pet store. The prize item, by goblin reckoning and the
carnival air around it, was the slowly flexing accordian-folding glass aquarium
brimming with foul greenish water that released bubbles scented of bleach and
something almost fruity. I cannot recall
much more—the Physiker dragged me away claiming I was overcome by the fumes. I
have the sense of the horrible liquid was spilling over the edges and things
alive in that tank that my mind associates with kittens and crabs
simultaneously. A goblin delicacy, the
Physiker tells me, and good for a soup for the recently malnourished
Changeling—she was apparently unconcerned and unaffected and now possessed of a
squirming plastic bag of something that made clicking noises.

But after that I could see the pattern. There were bird cages hung on hooks that
shared the strange writhing nature of that aquarium. The largest cages, big enough for a child,
had bars that were covered in scales and twisted and coiled—perhaps snakes
bound to that purpose.. And the smaller
ones, of a size for parrots and cockatiels, had bone-like bars that shuddered
and shivered and on them, tiny mouths full of teeth yawned open and snapped
shut. Mercifully, I saw nothing within
the cages.

We found a box of collars, studded with needles both inside
and out, that seemed so harmless when I saw them, that I picked one up and
examined it without worry—and yet—I still have the pin pricks all over my hands
and my neck. Again, I am further in debt
to the Physiker – which is growing both alarming and embarrassing.

We saw a pair of gloves that looked as if they'd been ripped
and torn at by dogs—they had an aggressively menacing air to them. I stayed well away after my encounter with
the collars. A few stray items also seemed part of the set—for instance, a
plastic bucket so gnawed and worried-over that it was only the bottom
two-thirds of it's original form; curiously enough, even in this state it gave
off a dream-like sensation of security and safety.

There were unsteady stacks of cans with labels that
resembled a famous brand of canned tuna—but instead of the cartoonish fish in a
blue sea, it was a cartoonish fish skeleton on a wet-looking red
background. The cans themselves were
unevenly sized and sloped in height—which bothered me all out of proportion to
the situation. I didn't buy nor did the
Physiker—but she did consider the blood-caked can opener that sat on the same
table—it looked old and well-made, like fancy silverware, but covered in grue
and tarnish that would never come off.

At the butchery stalls, perhaps related or perhaps not, the
tables were piled high with big chunks of massive quivering corals. The tentacled living masses within the pits
were being popped out with spoons into pails and bowls and whatever container
would slow their writhing escape. What
didn't sell fresh within the first minutes got smacked with a mallet until flat
and then dumped into crocks and covered with salts and vinegars and twigs. Patty pickles...now I knew where they came
from.